Steve Ballmer is fired up. The Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) CEO has just come offstage after speaking to 16,000 Worldwide Partner Conference attendees at the Air Canada Centre, home of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and he is talking about a new, more competitive Microsoft. It is a Microsoft more in line with Ballmer's hard-checking, hypercompetitive style. It is a Microsoft playing offense, willing to do what it takes to win as it moves to stop Apple--or anyone else, for that matter-- from wresting away its crown as the undisputed world leader in bringing personal computing to the masses.
Ballmer is now backstage at the Air Canada Centre in a private room with CRN, shouting and stretching out the word "any" in a rising crescendo to make a point--loudly and clearly--that Microsoft will not cede any market segment to Apple even if that means stepping on the toes of longtime hardware partners with its own Surface tablet.
"We are not going to let annyyyyyyyyyyyyy piece of this [go uncontested to Apple (NSDQ:AAPL)]," he bellowed in our exclusive interview. "Not the consumer cloud. Not hardware/software innovation. We are not leaving any of that to Apple by itself. Not going to happen! Not on our watch!"
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